Marlborough House, a

Grade I listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

mansion in

St James's St James's is a central district in the City of Westminster, London, forming part of the West End. In the 17th century the area developed as a residential location for the British aristocracy, and around the 19th century was the focus of the de ...

City of Westminster The City of Westminster is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and London boroughs, borough in Inner London. It is the site of the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament and much of the British government. It occupies a large area of cent ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, is the headquarters of the

Commonwealth of Nations The Commonwealth of Nations, simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the Co ...

and the seat of the

Commonwealth Secretariat The Commonwealth Secretariat is the main intergovernmental agency and central institution of the Commonwealth of Nations. It is responsible for facilitating co-operation between members; organising meetings, including the Commonwealth Heads o ...

. It was built in 1711 for

Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, Princess of Mindelheim, Countess of Nellenburg (née Jenyns, spelt Jennings in most modern references; 5 June 1660 (Old Style) – 18 October 1744), was an English courtier who rose to be one of th ...

, the favourite and confidante of Queen Anne. For over a century it served as the London residence of the

dukes of Marlborough Duke of Marlborough (pronounced ) is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created by Queen Anne in 1702 for John Churchill, 1st Earl of Marlborough (1650–1722), the noted military leader. In historical texts, unqualified use of the tit ...

. It became a royal residence through the 19th century and first half of the 20th. The house was expanded for the Prince of Wales, the future king

Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria an ...

, and became closely associated with the prince in the Victorian era. Queen Mary lived there when she was Princess of Wales and took a special interest in the house; she returned to live there in her widowhood. The building was leased by

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. She was queen ...

to the Commonwealth Secretariat beginning in 1965.

Construction

In 1708, the Duke of Marlborough was granted a 50-year lease of the site from the

Crown Estate The Crown Estate is a collection of lands and holdings in the United Kingdom belonging to the British monarch as a corporation sole, making it "the sovereign's public estate", which is neither government property nor part of the monarch's priva ...

at a low rent from Queen Anne, which beforehand had been partly occupied by the

pheasantry A pheasantry is a place or facility used for captive breeding and rearing pheasants, peafowls and other related birds, which may or may not be confined with enclosures such as aviaries. The pheasants may be sold or displayed to public or used as ...

adjoining St. James's Palace, and partly by the gardens of Henry Boyle, Queen Anne's Secretary of State. The Duke left his wife entirely in charge of the design and building of Marlborough House; she wanted her new home to be "strong, plain and convenient and good". The architect

Christopher Wren Sir Christopher Wren PRS FRS (; – ) was one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history, as well as an anatomist, astronomer, geometer, and mathematician-physicist. He was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 churches ...

and his son of the same name designed a two-story brick building with rusticated stone

quoins Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th century encyclopedia, t ...

(cornerstones) that was completed in 1711. The stonework and ornamentation were built by Edward Strong the Younger a friend of

Christopher Wren the Younger Christopher Wren (1675–1747), of Wroxall Abbey, Warwickshire was a Member of Parliament and the son of the architect Sir Christopher Wren. Life Wren was the second but first surviving son of Sir Christopher Wren and his first wife, Faith Cog ...

. The Duke purchased the bricks cheaply in

Holland Holland is a geographical regionG. Geerts & H. Heestermans, 1981, ''Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal. Deel I'', Van Dale Lexicografie, Utrecht, p 1105 and former province on the western coast of the Netherlands. From the 10th to the 16th c ...

while on campaign, and had them transported to England as ballast in the empty troop ships on their return journeys from depositing British troops. Throughout the building process, the Duchess kept a close watch on even the smallest details and quarreled with the Wrens over the contractors they had hired. This led

John Vanbrugh Sir John Vanbrugh (; 24 January 1664 (baptised) – 26 March 1726) was an English architect, dramatist and herald, perhaps best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restora ...

to joke that the Duchess had "the direction in chief to herself, with Sir Christopher Wren as her Deputy Surveyor." Eventually she dismissed the Wrens and took control of the design herself. In 1727, Sarah's political rival

Sir Robert Walpole Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, (26 August 1676 – 18 March 1745; known between 1725 and 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole) was a British statesman and Whig politician who, as First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Leade ...

purchased the lot between Marlborough House and Pall Mall through his protégé Thomas Ripley, reputedly to deny the Duchess a direct entrance onto Pall Mall. Wren had designed and built a gateway arch and screen in the front courtyard with this entrance in mind, which survives as a grotto. Still intent on an entrance from Pall Mall, in 1729 the Duchess leased four houses to the west and had them demolished to create a "poky" diagonal entrance. In the 1770s, the 4th Duke of Marlborough hired the architect

Sir William Chambers __NOTOC__ Sir William Chambers (23 February 1723 – 10 March 1796) was a Swedish-Scottish architect, based in London. Among his best-known works are Somerset House, and the pagoda at Kew. Chambers was a founder member of the Royal Academy. Biog ...

to add a third storey to the house and architectural details like new ceilings and chimneypieces.

Royal residence

MarlboroughHouseTHShepherdpubl1850s edited

After the fourth duke's death in 1817 ownership was taken up by

the Crown The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has different ...

so the building could be used as the residence of

Princess Charlotte of Wales Princess Charlotte of Wales may refer to: * Princess Charlotte of Wales (1796–1817), the only child of George, Prince of Wales, later King George IV of the United Kingdom ** Princess Charlotte of Wales (1812 EIC ship), a ship named after the pri ...

and her husband Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, the location of the house (north of The Mall and east of

St James's Palace St James's Palace is the most senior royal palace in London, the capital of the United Kingdom. The palace gives its name to the Court of St James's, which is the monarch's royal court, and is located in the City of Westminster in London. Altho ...

) making it convenient as a royal residence. The Princess died before the purchase was completed, and so her widower lived there alone for some time. He was offered the Belgian throne in the house on 22 April 1831. In the 1820s plans were drawn up to demolish Marlborough House and replace it with a

terrace Terrace may refer to: Landforms and construction * Fluvial terrace, a natural, flat surface that borders and lies above the floodplain of a stream or river * Terrace, a street suffix * Terrace, the portion of a lot between the public sidewalk an ...

of similar dimensions to the two in neighbouring

Carlton House Terrace Carlton House Terrace is a street in the St James's district of the City of Westminster in London. Its principal architectural feature is a pair of terraces of white stucco-faced houses on the south side of the street overlooking St. James's ...

, and this idea even featured on some contemporary maps, including Christopher and John Greenwood's large-scale London map of 1830, but the proposal was not implemented. After Leopold became king of Belgium and left Britain, Marlborough House continued to be primarily used by members of the

royal family A royal family is the immediate family of kings/queens, emirs/emiras, sultans/ sultanas, or raja/ rani and sometimes their extended family. The term imperial family appropriately describes the family of an emperor or empress, and the term ...

Queen Adelaide , house = Saxe-Meiningen , father = Georg I, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen , mother = Princess Louise Eleonore of Hohenlohe-Langenburg , birth_date = , birth_place = Meiningen, Saxe-Meiningen, Holy Rom ...

being given the use of Marlborough House from 1831 until her death in 1849. Following Queen Adelaide's death, Queen Victoria asked Parliament to allow the Prince of Wales to live there when he turned nineteen. From May to September 1852, the Museum of Manufactures, a predecessor of the

Victoria & Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

, housed its collections in Marlborough House. From 1853 to 1861 Prince Albert arranged for the building to be used by the "National Art Training School", later the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...

. From 1861 to 1863, Sir

James Pennethorne Sir James Pennethorne (4 June 1801 – 1 September 1871) was a British architect and planner, particularly associated with buildings and parks in central London. Life Early years Pennethorne was born in Worcester, and travelled to London in 1 ...

substantially enlarged the structure by adding a range of rooms on the north side and a deep porch for the Prince and Princess of Wales, later

King Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria a ...

and

Queen Alexandra Alexandra of Denmark (Alexandra Caroline Marie Charlotte Louise Julia; 1 December 1844 – 20 November 1925) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, from 22 January 1901 to 6 May 1910 as the wife of King ...

, who made their home the social centre of London. Their second son, the future

King George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. Born during the reign of his grandmother Que ...

, was born at Marlborough House in 1865, and the family lived there until

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...

died in 1901, when Edward acceded to the throne and they moved to nearby

Buckingham Palace Buckingham Palace () is a London royal residence and the administrative headquarters of the monarch of the United Kingdom. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is often at the centre of state occasions and royal hospitality. It ...

. From the 1880s the term ‘Marlborough House Set’ came into usage to denote the Prince of Wales's fast living social circle, which included gamblers, bankers, and other "raffish" individuals.Stourton, 2012; p.36. After his father moved to Buckingham Palace in 1901, Edward VII's son George, now Prince of Wales, took up residence with his wife

Mary Mary may refer to: People * Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name) Religious contexts * New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below * Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...

and their children. Mary extensively redecorated to make the home more comfortable, and was reluctant to move to Buckingham Palace after her husband became George V in 1910. Following this, Queen Alexandra once again made Marlborough House her London home, until her death in 1925. A late

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

memorial fountain by

Alfred Gilbert Sir Alfred Gilbert (12 August 18544 November 1934) was an English sculptor. He was born in London and studied sculpture under Joseph Boehm, Matthew Noble, Édouard Lantéri and Pierre-Jules Cavelier. His first work of importance was ''The Kis ...

(1926–32) in the Marlborough Road wall of the house commemorates her. Marlborough House Rotating Summer House

In 1936, Marlborough House became the London residence of George V's widow, Queen Mary, who survived George by 17 years. In the grounds of the house remains her

pet cemetery A pet cemetery is a cemetery for pets. History Many human cultures buried animal remains. For example, the Ancient Egyptians mummified and buried cats, which they considered deities, and the largest known dog cemetery in the ancient wo ...

. A thatch-roofed rotating

summer house A summer house or summerhouse has traditionally referred to a building or shelter used for relaxation in warm weather. This would often take the form of a small, roofed building on the grounds of a larger one, but could also be built in a garden ...

built for her is still in place. A plaque to commemorate Queen Mary was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II in 1967 on the exterior wall closest to the corner with the Mall.

Commonwealth Secretariat

After Queen Mary's death in 1953, Marlborough House continued to be used by various members of the royal family as a London residence before Queen Elizabeth II leased it to the Commonwealth Secretariat in 1965, an arrangement which continues today.

Features

The nearly cubical saloon retains wall-paintings by

Louis Laguerre Louis Laguerre (1663 – 20 April 1721) was a French decorative painter mainly working in England. Born in Versailles in 1663 and trained at the Paris Academy under Charles Le Brun, he came to England in 1683, where he first worked with Anton ...

of the

Battle of Blenheim The Battle of Blenheim (german: Zweite Schlacht bei Höchstädt, link=no; french: Bataille de Höchstädt, link=no; nl, Slag bij Blenheim, link=no) fought on , was a major battle of the War of the Spanish Succession. The overwhelming Allied v ...

(at which the 1st Duke of Marlborough was overall commander for Britain and her allies; seat of the

is Blenheim Palace, one of England's largest houses). A

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, from ...

inserted in the ceiling is surrounded by paintings by

Orazio Gentileschi Orazio Lomi Gentileschi (1563–1639) was an Italian painter. Born in Tuscany, he began his career in Rome, painting in a Mannerist style, much of his work consisting of painting the figures within the decorative schemes of other artists. After ...

and

Artemisia Gentileschi Artemisia Lomi or Artemisia Gentileschi (, ; 8 July 1593) was an Italian Baroque painter. Gentileschi is considered among the most accomplished seventeenth-century artists, initially working in the style of Caravaggio. She was producing profess ...

for the

Queen's House, Greenwich Queen's House is a former royal residence built between 1616 and 1635 near Greenwich Palace, a few miles down-river from the City of London and now in the London Borough of Greenwich. It presently forms a central focus of what is now the Old Ro ...

, 1636. There are paired staircases flanking the saloon, with further battle pieces by Laguerre. Most of the interiors have been altered.

Public opening times

Marlborough House is usually open to the public for

Open House Weekend Open House London is an annual festival celebrating the architecture and urban landscape of London. It is staged by the charity Open City which campaigns to make London a more accessible, equitable and open city. During the Open House festival, ...

each September. The house is also open for group tours by prior arrangement.

References

Bibliography

* Cornforth, John (2004). ''Early Georgian Interiors''. New Haven, Conn.; London: Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, pp. 134, 275. . * Murdoch, Tessa (ed.) (2006). ''

: Eighteenth-Century Inventories of Great English Houses. A Tribute to

John Cornforth Sir John Warcup Cornforth Jr., (7 September 1917 – 8 December 2013) was an AustralianBritish chemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1975 for his work on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalysed reactions, becoming the only Nobel l ...

''. Cambridge: John Adamson, pp. 284–7, *

External links

Visiting Information at The Commonwealth SecretariatFlickr images tagged Marlborough House
{{Commonwealth of Nations topics Commonwealth Secretariat Christopher Wren buildings in London Houses in the City of Westminster Royal buildings in London Royal residences in the City of Westminster St James's Houses completed in 1711 Grade I listed buildings in the City of Westminster Grade I listed houses in London 1711 establishments in England Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen